The Poetry Bus Wakes up and Smells the Lino

This week, that legendary conveyance, the Poetry Bus, is driven by Barbara who set us a challenge on her bleeuugh! to write a poem whose first line was: I got down on my knees and smelled the new linoleum.

Now, there's a few ways this could go, obviously, but this is a family blog and we'll have no kinky stuff here, thank you very much.  Barbara wanted long lines as well.  My pome has those, alright (hence the smaller font to fit them in), but reads more like a lump of prose as a result. 

Anyhoo.  Enjoy.  Oh, by the way, the story recounted here is completely fictional as far as I'm concerned, but I'm sure it has happened to somebody somewhere.


I got down on my knees and smelled the new linoleum.
The toothbrush clutched in my aching fist was a shocking pink shout,
At odds with the steady brown decorum of the imitation oak parquet,
Defying the tired but resolute black of the shoes of the woman standing over me.


A bucket of soapy water landed with a dull plastic noise next to my bent head,
It was not the first: Sister Mary's anger had run to many buckets this day.
I was scrubbing the floor and the wickedness from my nine-year-old soul.
Gluttony is a deadly sin and nobody should go to Hell for a stolen cupcake.


My hands were dead, white, shrivelled things, luminous in the long shadows,
My back a red-hot rod of pain when she returned just before Vespers
Surprise limned her face: she had forgotten me and my shocking pink toothbrush.
The floor was clean enough to eat off, but my thoughts were black.


P.S  Can anyone think of a title for this?  'Cos I can't.